McCann Worldgroup Singapore and National Council of Social Service launch ‘Beyond the Label’ project to fight mental health stigma

Together with the National Council of Social Service (NCSS), made possible by the Tote Board, McCann Worldgroup Singapore launched the first ever nation-wide mental health anti-stigma campaign at the Mental Health Festival organised by the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) to mark its 90th anniversary.

Present at the launch were, Guest of Honour, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic and Social Policies, Dr Amy Khor, Senior Minister of State for Health and Sam Tan, Minister of State for Family and Social Development, as well as about 200 guests from the social service and healthcare sectors, media, persons in recovery and advocates.

The campaign is a direct response to address key findings from a newly released 2017 NCSS Study on Attitudes towards Persons with Mental Health Conditions in Singapore[1], which emphasises the need to dispel stigma and change the attitudes, perceptions and behaviours of the public towards persons with mental health conditions, to facilitate greater social inclusion and an improved quality of life for all.

earlyn Tseng, Director, Corporate Communications, NCSS, said, “Research shows that social inclusion is a key factor to improving the quality of life of persons with mental health conditions, yet stigma towards persons with mental health conditions is prevalent and prevents them from seeking help early and integrating into community. To address this, NCSS took a person-centric approach and co-created “Beyond the Label” with persons in recovery. Through this campaign, we hope the public will have greater empathy, understanding and acceptance of persons with mental health conditions, and for persons in recovery to realise that there is hope, support and happiness beyond the diagnosis.”

The “Beyond the Label” campaign movement was co-created by five persons in recovery who have taken on the role as Campaign Ambassadors for the campaign, and focused

on their authentic stories of recovery, resilience, family and social integration, as well as contributions at work.

Alfred Wee, Creative Director, McCann Worldgroup Singapore commented, “What was first a task to generate greater conversations around this rarely talked-about issue in society has become something more for the agency and team working with NCSS; the movement has opened our minds and touched our hearts and we hope that the public will recognize the importance of their role to people recovering from their mental health conditions.”

As part of the campaign, the teams invited members of the public to a Social Experiment session aimed at helping them to understand the negative attitudes, perceptions and behaviours faced by persons in recovery, and recognise the importance of social inclusion in enabling an improved quality of life for these individuals. The experiment was co-created by McCann Worldgroup Singapore, NCSS and two persons in recovery to methodically drive an empathic response toward a person with mental health condition through 3 stages. See the video here.

The Social Experiment video along with key visuals and videos of the campaign ambassadors will be showcased across multiple media platforms from September to November 2018.

NCSS, McCann Worldgroup Singapore and IPG Mediabrands also launched a community platform on Facebook as well as a wearable for advocates and key opinion leaders to display their solidarity to the Beyond the Label movement and rally behind the cause. Social content and events focused on the campaign, mental health conditions and persons in recovery will be released from September onwards.

Fathrul Fazakir, Senior Account Director, McCann Worldgroup Singapore remarked, “McCann Worldgroup believes in helping brands build a meaningful role in society, and we are thankful that through our partnership with NCSS and other partners in the social service ecosystem, we have been able to drive inclusion of all, regardless of their conditions.”

Credits –

[1] 2017 Study on Attitudes towards Persons with Mental Health Conditions in Singapore was conducted by NCSS with respondents without mental health conditions aged 18 and above. It aimed to find the baseline of the public’s attitudes towards persons with mental health conditions, identify factors associated with attitudes and provide recommendations based on findings